How to Boost Your Immune System
Learn how to make your body resistant to germs and disease so you can live a longer, healthier life.
Up next in How to Be Healthy (28 videos)
Look and feel better with the advice on how to live a healthier lifestyle in these videos.
You Will Need
- Daily moderate exercise
- Something to laugh about
- Optimism
- Lots of friends
- A healthy diet
- Seven to nine hours of sleep per night
- A bridge group (optional)
Steps
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Step 1
Get moving
Get moving: Just 30 minutes a day of moderate exercise will do. You can even split it into three 10-minute bursts of activity.
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Step 2
Laugh it off
Find something to laugh about every day – even force it if you have to. Real or fake, laughter strengthens your immune system by increasing good-for-you hormones and reducing stress ones; lowering your blood pressure; and slowing your resting heart rate.
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Step 3
Look at the bright side
Train yourself to look at the bright side. Optimistic people were two and a half times less likely to develop cancer of any kind than their pessimistic peers, according to one study.
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Step 4
Make time for friends
Make time for the friends you have and cultivate new ones. A study found that seniors with a lot of pals were 22 percent less likely than their less social counterparts to die during the decade when they participated in the study.
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Start a bridge group. Research shows that bridge boosts the body's defense against infections and illness.
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Step 5
Eat well
Eat a healthy diet: at least five servings of fruits and vegetables a day focusing on the antioxidant powerhouses; complex carbs, fatty fish, and a few cups of green tea at least two times a week; a daily handful of nuts; no more than one glass of alcohol per day; and a limited amount of meat and sweets.
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Eat more mushrooms during cold and flu season: Research shows that when a virus is present, mushrooms may rally the immune system to fight them.
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Step 6
Catch your zzzzz's
Get at least seven hours of sleep every night, more if you can.
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The first scientists to prove that the body defends itself against disease through the immune system shared the Nobel Prize in 1908.
